Saturday, November 26, 2016

Etude aux Fraises - update #3

Nothing particuarly exciting to show today, but I like posting to see my progress so...


Most of the new stitching is at the top, and I'm starting to work out toward the left side as well. Hoping to make some good progress by the end of the year! :)

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Etude aux Fraises - update #2

Well, I ran out of beads for my Bride's Tree ornaments, so I'm a bit stuck at the moment while I wait to get some more. Oops! But of course that doesn't mean I'm going to stop stitching. I finished the fourth part of the Beautiful Sea Quaker SAL (no pic, sorry!) and after that, I picked up Etude aux Fraises by Veronique Enginger.

I've only shown it once on the blog, so here's a comparison of the progress. :)


Not all of the progress is recent, but you get the idea. :)

And as a reminder, here's what the full project looks like:


Soooo... there's a lot of strawberries to go. Unfortunately, this is a color chart, which makes it hard to make a working copy, and the colors on the chart are so dark it's pretty much impossible to highlight my progress. I know lots of people love color charts, but I am not one of them! I need to scribble all over everything to keep my place when stitching. This is probably why I put this project down for such a long time, even though it should be very easy - only a few colors, no blends, just regular and half stitches, etc. Sigh. :(

Thursday, November 17, 2016

getting close to a big finish!

The final Bride's Tree ornament is done! And this one is 100% complete with beads... which means I just need to go back and bead the other eleven in the series for a BIG finish. :)


Well, that's horribly blurry, but you get the idea...

And here's how this ornament ties them all together!

#1 - house in basket
#2 - heart on pocket
#3 - flower on pocket
#4 - bunny in pocket
#5 - bird on hat
#6 - apple on hat & basket over shoulder
#7 - rainbow trout
#8 - blue rose
#9 - teapot in pocket
#10 - pinecone in pocket
#11 - angel in basket

I'm kind of amazed that all these mini motifs fit together in one design!

Next time, I hope to have reasonably clear photos of all the beaded designs. Gotta remember to clean my lens before taking pictures, haha... :)

Sunday, November 13, 2016

weekly progress!

Another week, another update!

First up, cruising right along on the last Bride's Tree ornament - this is Santa, and what's really cute about this one is that he has all the motifs from the previous eleven ornaments incorporated into the design! Right now you can see a rose and the outline of a teapot, but an element from every single ornament in the series is in there. I'll point them all out once I finish.


And finally, my progress on the Ship's Manor Beautiful Sea Quaker SAL. This is parts 1, 2, and 3, with some bits missing since I don't want to stitch half a motif in variegated thread. I'm waiting until the entire motif is available before adding anything that's split across multiple parts.


Also, the colors in this photo are horrible... the fabric is a pretty blue/green, but it looks very washed out and somewhat purple in the picture. Oh well, I'll do better next time.

Sunday, November 06, 2016

ornament #11 is done!

Whew, it took a lot of work to get this angel finished, but she's finally ready! The dress was pretty boring but I have to admit that it looks great once all the backstitch is in.

Two photos because each of our phones is so different! My camera's photo is on the left, and the colors are more accurate, but it's not as clear. The right side is from my wife's camera, which tends to overexpose everything, but the quality is just better in general.


As usual, the beads will be saved for the very end, once I finish the final ornament in the series... which is the next one! I can't believe I'm almost done with this entire set! This is a beautiful series of ornaments and I know I'll be stitching more Brooke's Books in the future too. :)

Friday, November 04, 2016

small progress post! :)

Not a huge amount of progress to share today, but since I've committed to posting at least once a week, I want to keep to that promise. :)


I'm more than halfway done with the eleventh Bride's Tree ornament, and I honestly can't wait to be finished with this blue dress! It's super tedious, especially since the "variegated" floss I chose is pretty much just a solid. In fact, I'm running out, so I started blending it - one strand of variegated and one of plain DMC - and there's absolutely no difference in the color. I'll probably end up using straight DMC for a small portion of the dress, and it won't matter. Well, I guess it's a relief in that way!

I'm going to push for a finish on this one over the weekend.

Hmm, I thought I had a photo of the Ship's Manor Beautiful Sea Quaker SAL to show, but I can't find it in my dropbox! Oh well, I'll just have to stitch part three and take a new picture. :) I'll post about it next time!

Also, all the no-buys are still going strong! I even managed to return an item that was rather pricey (and totally not the color advertised!) so it was great to see that refund on my credit card. Of course, the real solution is to not buy in the first place, and that's what I'll be doing.

Or not doing. Whatever. :p